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Freya Najade

Photographer

This is the story of Lusatia. For 150 years, the East German landscape was a polluted wasteland. Deep mines scarred the earth, swallowing villages in their path. Eventually the mines closed, leaving huge expanses of damaged and empty land. Around 15 years ago a group of architects and urban designers set out to transform the area into usable, productive land, and soon it will be the biggest artificial lakes district in Europe. A tourist hub for European residents like nowhere else in the world, the Lusatian Lakes District drew the interest of German (now London based) photographer Freya Najade.

We were lucky enough to catch her one recent London morning to chat about the creation of her series Jazorina, what draws her to projects, and finding interesting stories in your own backyard.

In the past the air quality was very bad. There was this saying that if you put a white shirt out in the garden to dry when you came out it would be grey or black.

What inspired you to travel to the Lusatia Lakes District initially?

People recommended I go there; in general it has quite an interesting landscape. Then I started researching and I thought it sounds really interesting how humans want to change the landscape of the region, especially to create such a contrary image. I went there one summer to visit for a few days to just take a look and I took my camera with me. I actually stayed longer than I initially planned that year and then I returned two more summers to document.

Visually it’s so striking to see people holidaying in front of all these mines in their swim shorts.

From a perspective of a photographer, visually, it’s very arresting. Content wise, if you think about what’s happening there, in a way it’s the third ecosystem or social landscape that’s existed there. In the beginning there was forest and marshes, then people created the mines and the whole character of the region changed. Over the last 150 years the mines ate a lot of villages there. Again now to change the landscape and say we’re not a mining region any more, we’re Europe’s biggest artificial Lakes District. I think the idea of humans overpowering nature is very interesting. There’s also this aspect that the people who created this lakes district didn’t try to hide their past, they’ve incorporated its industrial history into the image of the district. You can come to swim in the lakes, but you can also visit an active power plant or mines, because there is still industry happening there right now. People were proud of their past and it’s incorporated into the image of the district.

How did the local residents react to their countryside being turned into a tourist area?

At the beginning people were sceptical to how that landscape could become a tourist area, but by now they are quite proud. They definitely like the change, it’s much nicer to have a lake and bike paths in front of your house than a mine. Having said that, from the people I spoke to they are also very proud of their past. Miners are very proud people and in that sense it works in combination. People were proud to be working in a mine.

The structure change for the region is great but only 5-10% of people will be able to work in tourism in the area. Even though it’s such a huge project, the industry that used to be there was a much bigger employer and tourism will never be able to replace all those jobs.

Do you think Lusatia is a viable blueprint for other places looking to reclaim mined areas?

There’s another area not far from there that is also being transformed but not on such a big scale. In general, because when the mines are done you are left with these mine pits and eventually over time they will fill with water, so if you leave those mine pits over 50-100 years you will have those lakes anyway. They are just speeding up the process by filling it artificially and cleaning the water, but the speeding up process is very expensive so they are creating the tourist infrastructure. The enormous size of the lakes district compared to other areas where it’s just the filling in of one mine is what makes this area so special.

What’s the air quality like now if there are still mines operating in the area?

There used to around 20 mines and now there are 3. It’s definitely a huge change. Also the technology has advanced so much, power plants used to pollute the surrounding area much more than today. In the past the air quality was very bad. There was this saying that if you put a white shirt out in the garden to dry when you came out it would be grey or black. Also in Germany, when I told my parents I was going to Lusatia they were saying ‘There?! Why go there?’ In the mind of my parents generation it still has the stigma of this highly polluted, industrialised are.

What did you find was the main motivation behind the creation of the Lake District?

It first started with a project called International Architecture Exhibition (Internationale Bauausstellung– IBA), which is a German exhibition for Urban Engineering and Architecture. Between 2000-2010 this exhibition took place in Lusatia. They came up with this idea to transform this area into a lake district, making sure to incorporate the area’s past in the thirty projects they created there. They came up with the plan for how to transform the area, so their drive was very much from an architecture perspective. In Germany, by law these types of areas have to be converted or remade into usable land again.

In a way it’s the third ecosystem or social landscape that’s existed there. In the beginning there was forest and marshes, then people created the mines and the whole character of the region changed.

They’re not making too much money from it.The structure change for the region is great but only 5-10% of people will be able to work in tourism in the area. Even though it’s such a huge project, the industry that used to be there was a much bigger employer and tourism will never be able to replace all those jobs.In a way I was surprised that the creation of this lakes district will not solve all of the problems. There are still a lot of people who won’t find work. Many people said to me ‘well it’s really nice but my son won’t find work’. A lot of the older generation are quite sad that their families have been split apart because their children have had to move away to find work.

Is travel an integral part of your process as a photographer?

To travel to do projects can make it easier because it’s away from everything so you only have time to work on the project, and the time pressure makes you go work. In the past I was definitely more drawn to it, but with my latest series Along the Hackney Canal I’ve found it invaluable to have the chance to revisit the project as much as I want. It’s easier to get distracted but it can be more fluid, so there are positives and down sides to both. Interesting work can arise when you look more closely at where you live. I recently got a dog, we go for walks along the canal.

It seems to me that this is the golden age of amateur photography. How do professionals, that is those who are committed documentary, editorial, photojournalists, how do we go about telling stories that are convincing and compelling in a visually saturated environment?

National Geographic photographer Sam Abell has defined his career with patience. There is no dull section of a Sam Abell photograph, the frame is layered from back to front with compelling imagery. This can be a slow process, it can take days, weeks, or in some cases months for the right opportunity to present itself.

There were many rafts over the course of the four years and all were built with salvaged materials. The construction boom happening in NYC in the mid-2000s provided a lot of scrap material that we pulled from dumpsters.

I love the unexpected, uncontrollable moments that just happen. That’s why I suppose spontaneity is really the crux of the best art I’ve done. That, and I just really love the process of making things.

There are countless stories that tell of a young man, lost and uncertain, who sets out on a whirlwind adventure and figures out who he really is. It is a sad reality that amongst the great classic adventure stories, very few (if any) of the protagonists are female.

I perceive my photographic work through a director’s eyes, however, the difference in my vision, is that the whole world is a stage. It’s an intense sensation of “limitless”. I like to recreate a fantastic universe of dreams and travels.

Arriving back in Marrakech, I felt like I had truly been to outer space and back; I felt like I had seen landscapes that could not exist on our planet. I felt like I had stepped both back and out of time and had seen and briefly experienced a different way of living, of one without time and without fear.

Photography is a fiction. It’s a frame of a film which hasn’t been made, or a line from a forgotten poem. I always create in camera as much as possible, because it is also about the experience of what is in front of you at the time.

It’s surprising to see a lot of people’s living spaces of a certain age – what they surround themselves with and how they decorate their houses. They’re like living museums. It’s often an incredible level of chaos and madness that they live amongst

I use that same word when I talk about travel – luxury. It’s such a white man’s headache you know, like, it’s not hard. People say “How did you do that? That’s so hard.” And I think, “Well there are some cold days, some warm days, you know..” But it’s my own choice, and it’s a privilege entirely.

Porter Yates is a photographer, and Dan Melamid is a director. They have been friends for many years, and both share a passion for travel and visual storytelling. Through Witness.Earth they have collaborated to develop a new style of photographic presentation to music.

Thematically, (Katrin’s) work is concerned with ideas of Australian regional and remote communities in socio-economic transition in the 21st century; experientially, it is an exploration of photographer’s familiarity with her new home country.

Wild & Precious brings together treasures from a series of road trips travelled over 5 years by photographer Jesse Burke and his daughter Clover. It’s a reminder that exploration is timeless, and infinite, as should be the wild.

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it… I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

My driving force is to discover places and creations that I personally find intriguing. As for what I’m trying to communicate to an audience, it is a more focused critical perspective, something that I will develop over time.

While cycling about in remote South Australia Tom was bitten on the neck by a reback spider and, after suffering through the night, made it to hospital the following day to be dosed up on two bags of anti-venom. Another time, while hiking Tasmania’s magnificent Overland Track through constant rainfall, a leech found its way quietly into his mouth.

At the age of 22, Larry Niehues packed his bags and headed to Mcallen in south Texas. Following the footsteps of Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston and Dennis Hopper, he embarked on his own great American road trip.

I struggle a little bit with my attraction to old things, but I like small towns and they are usually a little behind the times. At least landscapes are timeless. I can’t be accused of nostalgia when photographing nature.

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it. Creativity is tied to anything that makes you tick. In my case it is the outdoors.

Ittoqqortoormiit is one of the most insulated towns in the world. Far away from all touristic highways and only accessible by helicopter. Two supply ships a year, and if you forget to lodge a request you must wait six more months for this.

I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them.

Maybe in some of these places there has never been human presence, I access them with my kayak or by boat. Sometimes I’m lucky, and I go alone, sometimes I go with my groups. Either way I’m very lucky, I can see other worlds within this world. I’m very lucky to experience this.

We want to make people aware about how difficult the living and working conditions in certain parts of the world can be, the fact that not everybody was born into the bright side of life but also that travelling to far away places is possible – through photographs.

The Family Acid sounds something like an adult swim cartoon, but the truth is so much more awesome. They are in fact responsible for some of the most visually intriguing and detailed documentation of the counter cultural movement of the 1970’s on, out of the U.S and beyond.

That was a life changing time with two wonderful women and their amazing father who are dear friends of mine. They are sailors but it was a first for me to be out at sea for two weeks. The best way to explore any coast on a magic carpet ride!

It was an amazing, incredible sight to see hundreds of people on this beach. The horses went in first, four or five horses into the water, then the saints were immersed, and then everybody else went in after that to take the ritual bath.

I make an effort to let everyone I photograph know what I’m up to. I want them to understand where I am coming from. I think when they meet me they realise I’m not out to expose or judge them. Who am I to expose something or someone anyway?

This series is the first time I’ve ventured into photojournalism. The opportunity fell into place; I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wasn’t prepared for the evident increase in poaching and anti-poaching activity this time around, and that was a shock. It’s a strange series to reflect on.